Mel Allen (born Melvin Allen Israel; February 14, 1913 – June 16, 1996) was an American sportscaster, best known for his long tenure as the primary play-by-play announcer for the New York Yankees. During the peak of his career in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, Allen was arguably the most prominent member of his profession, his voice familiar to millions. Years after his death, he is still promoted as having been "The Voice of the Yankees." In his later years, he gained a second professional life as the first host of This Week in Baseball.

Allen graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1937. Shortly after graduating, Allen took a train to New York City for a week's vacation. While on that week's vacation, he auditioned for a staff announcer's position at the CBS Radio Network. CBS executives already knew of Allen; the network's top sportscaster, Ted Husing, had heard many of his Crimson Tide broadcasts. He was hired at $45 [$796 in 2018] a week.[4] He often did non-sports announcing such as for big band remotes, or "emceeing" game shows such as Truth or Consequences, serving as an understudy for both sportscaster Husing and newscaster Bob Trout.[2][3][5]

In his first year at CBS, he announced the crash of the Hindenburg when the station cut away from singer Kate Smith's show. He first became a national celebrity when he ad libbed for a half-hour during the rain-delayed Vanderbilt Cup from an airplane.[6] In 1939, he was the announcer for the Warner Brothers & Vitaphone film musical short-subject, On the Air, with Leith Stevens and the Saturday Night Swing Club.[7][8]

Stephen Borelli, in his biography How About That?! (a favorite expression of Allen's after an outstanding play by the home team), states that it was at CBS's suggestion in 1937, the year Melvin Israel joined the network, that he go by a different last name on the air. He chose Allen, his father's middle name as well as his own, and legally changed his name to Melvin Allen in 1943.[3]

In June 1939, Garnett Marks, McDonald's partner on Yankee broadcasts, twice mispronounced Ivory Soap, the Yankees' sponsor at the time, as "Ovary Soap." He was fired, and Allen was tapped to replace him. McDonald himself went back to Washington after only one season, and Allen became the Yankees' and Giants' lead announcer,[4] doing double duty for both teams because only their home games were broadcast at that time.

He periodically recounted an anecdote that occurred during his first full season (1940) as Yankee play-by-play man. Hall of Fame first baseman Lou Gehrig had been forced to retire the year before after having been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a fatal illness. Speaking with Allen in the Yankee dugout, Gehrig told him "Mel, I never got a chance to listen to your games before because I was playing every day. But I want you to know they're the only thing that keeps me going." Allen broke down in tears after Gehrig departed.[4]

Allen's stint with the Yankees and Giants was interrupted in 1941, when no sponsor could be found and both teams went off the air, but the broadcasts resumed in 1942. Allen was the voice of both the Yankees and the Giants until 1943, when he entered the United States Army during World War II, broadcasting on The Army Hour and Armed Forces Radio.[3]

After the war, Allen called Yankee games exclusively. By this time, road games were added to the broadcast schedule. Before long Allen and the Yankees were fused in the public consciousness,[9] an association strengthened by the team's frequent World Series appearances. Allen eventually called 22 World Series on radio or television, including all but one in the 17-year stretch between 1947 and 1963. He also called 24 All-Star Games.[3]

In 1952 Allen was one of the first three celebrities spoofed in the just-created Mad satirical comic book. In the second issue, Allen, Giant manager Leo Durocher and Hall of Fame Yankee catcher Yogi Berra were all caricatured in a baseball story, "Hex!", illustrated by Jack Davis. His likeness was also licensed by Standard Comics for a two-issue "Mel Allen's Sports Comics" series between 1949 and 1950.[10]

After Russ Hodges departed from the Yankee booth to become the longtime voice of the New York (and starting in 1958, San Francisco) Giants, the young Curt Gowdy replaced him as Allen's broadcast partner in 1949 & 1950, having been brought in from Oklahoma City after winning a national audition. Gowdy, originally from Wyoming, credited Mel Allen's mentoring as a big factor in his own success as a broadcaster and became the voice of the Boston Red Sox from 1951 to 1965. Red Barber, the former Brooklyn Dodgers announcer who had served as Allen's crosstown rival and frequent World Series broadcast partner, joined the Yankees' booth in 1954 and teamed with Allen until the latter's dismissal a decade later.

Among Allen's many catchphrases were "Hello there, everybody!" to start a game, "How a-bout that?!" on outstanding Yankee plays, "There's a drive, hit deep to right. That ball is go-ing, go-ing, gonnne!!" for Yankee home runs, for full counts, "Three and two. What'll he do?" and after a robust Yankee swing and miss, "He took a good cut!"[6]

Allen lost his voice late in the fourth and last game of the 1963 World Series, in which the Dodgers swept the Yankees in four games and their longtime announcer, Vin Scully, paired with Allen on the national telecast, spontaneously took over from him for the end of the game after he could no longer talk, telling him soothingly, "That's all right, Mel." (Scully had announced the first half of the game, and Allen had begun to announce the second half.)[4]

Allen hosted Jackpot Bowling on NBC in 1959 after Leo Durocher had left to return to major league baseball coaching, but his lack of bowling knowledge made him an unpopular host and Bud Palmer replaced him as the show's host in April.[14][15]

In the early 1940s, Allen hosted Thirty Minutes to Play on CBS radio. The program featured "interviews of sports and musical personalities."[16]

In 1947, Allen was a disc jockey on 1010 WINS in New York City, with a 2-5 p.m. program daily. An ad for the station in Broadcasting called the show "the initial step in our plans for bloc [sic] programming."[17]

In the early 1960s, Allen hosted the three-hour Saturday morning segment of the weekend NBC Radio program Monitor. He also contributed sportscasts to the program until the late 1960s. Allen also provided voiceover narration for FoxMovietonenewsreels for many years.

On September 21, 1964—prior to the start of the World Series—the Yankees informed Allen that his contract with the team would not be renewed for 1965. In those days, the main announcers for both Series participants always called the World Series on NBC television. Although Allen was thus technically eligible to call the 1964 World Series, Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick honored the Yankees' request to have retired Yankee star shortstop Phil Rizzuto, Allen's sidekick in the radio booth, join the Series crew instead. It would be one of only four Yankee World Series going back to 1938 that Allen had not broadcast, and the first since 1943 (which he'd missed due to his Army service).

On December 17, 1964, after much media speculation and many letters to the Yankees from fans disgruntled by Allen's absence from the Series, the Yankees issued a terse press release announcing Allen's firing; he was replaced by Joe Garagiola. NBC and Movietone dropped him soon afterward. To this day, the Yankees have never given an explanation for the sudden firing, and rumors abounded. Depending on the rumor, Allen was either homosexual, an alcoholic, a drug addict, or had a nervous breakdown.[6]

Years later, Allen told author Curt Smith that the Yankees had fired him under pressure from the team's longtime sponsor, Ballantine Beer. According to Allen, he was fired as a cost-cutting move by Ballantine, which had been experiencing poor sales for years[6] (it would eventually be sold in 1969). Smith, in his book Voices of Summer, also indicated that the medications Allen took to see him through his busy schedule may have affected his on-air performance. (Stephen Borelli, another biographer, has also pointed out that Allen's heavy workload did not allow him time to take care of his health.)

Allen became Merle Harmon's partner for Milwaukee Braves games in 1965, and worked Cleveland Indians games on television in 1968. But he would not commit to either team full-time, nor to the Oakland Athletics, who also wanted to hire him after the team's move from Kansas City. Despite the firing in 1964, Allen remained loyal to the Yankees for the remainder of his life, and to this day—years after his death—he is still popularly known as "the Voice of the Yankees."[11][12][18][19][20]

The Yankees eventually brought Allen back to emcee special Yankee Stadium ceremonies, including Old-Timers' Day, which Allen had originally handled when he was lead announcer. Although Yankee broadcaster Frank Messer, who joined the club in 1968, replaced him as emcee for Old-Timers' Day and other special events like Mickey Mantle Day, the Yankees continued to invite Allen to call the actual exhibition game between the Old Timers, and to take part in players' number-retirement ceremonies.

Allen remained with the Yankees' play-by-play crew until 1985 and made occasional appearances on Yankee telecasts and commercials into the late 1980s. In 1990, Allen called play-by-play for a WPIX Yankees game to officially make him baseball's first seven-decade announcer. Among the memorable moments Allen called in his latter stretch were Yankee outfielder Reggie Jackson's 400th home run in 1980, and Yankee pitcher Dave Righetti's no-hitter on July 4, 1983.[24]

In his later years, Allen was exposed to a new audience as the host of the syndicated highlights show This Week in Baseball, which he hosted from its inception in 1977 until his death. When FOX relaunched TWIB in 2000 (after a one-year hiatus), it used a claymation version of Allen to open and close the show until 2002.[citation needed]

Allen was a dream to work with. If something sounded the least bit off, he caught it himself and self-corrected before you even had a chance to ask for another take. Sometimes he'd hear a problem live that we would only have noticed later. When he was reading the long list of numbers that would be spliced into sentences to announce batting averages and so on, he stopped suddenly and said, 'That's not good.' Then he started again and finished the list. When we checked the tape we heard that he had just started to get a sing-song rhythm from repeating too many numbers in a row, and he'd noticed before anyone else had.[citation needed]

Allen died of heart failure at age 83 on June 16, 1996; he had undergone open-heart surgery in 1989. His one-week vacation to New York had turned into 60 years; he had settled in New York after landing a job at CBS Radio and lived there and southwestern Connecticut for the rest of his life.

He was buried at Temple Beth El Cemetery in Stamford, Connecticut. On July 25, 1998, the Yankees dedicated a plaque in his memory at Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. The plaque calls him "A Yankee institution, a national treasure" and includes his much-spoken line "How about that?!"[27]